Tributes paid after death of Mary McGee, who helped end Ireland’s ban on contraception

Mother-of-four brought legal case against government after customs seized her contraceptives package from UK

Tributes have poured in from across Ireland after the death of Mary McGee, a woman credited with sparking a social revolution" that paved the way for the legalisation of contraceptives in the country.

McGee, who went by May, and her husband, Seamus, burst into the headlines in 1972, after the couple lodged a landmark legal challenge against a decades-old law that banned the sale or importation of contraceptives in Ireland.